What is a "dedicated IP address"?

A dedicated IP address simply means that no other site uses the same IP address. But it's not a static IP address, so it may change at any time: we don't guarantee that you'll get a particular IP address of your choice, or that the IP address will start off or remain in any particular network block.

Most people don’t need a dedicated IP address, but reasons to get one may include:

The ability to use an SSL certificate that works with very old browsers or operating systems that don’t support Server Name Indication (desktop browsers from before 2007 or mobile browsers from before 2010);

The need for a “reverse DNS entry” that shows your domain name;

The need for firewall rules that block certain “ports” on our servers for PCI compliance reasons;

The need for an SSL certificate that includes only your domain name, with no others in the “Subject Alternative Names” section of the certificate;

You want to enter your site’s IP address into a third-party DNS server (even though we don’t recommend that), and you want to reduce the frequency of changes to that IP address (although this will not eliminate those changes completely).

How can I get a dedicated IP address?

You can upgrade to a dedicated IP address for an additional $2.00 per month (per domain name).

To switch to a dedicated IP address, please contact us. Doing this takes around one business day.

Aren't shared IP addresses undesirable?

A shared IP address should have no effect on how your site works. There's rarely a technical need for a dedicated IP address, and ARIN — the organization that assigns IP addresses — requires us to use shared addresses in most cases.

People sometimes ask this question because of a rumor that dedicated IP addresses improve search engine rankings. That's a myth, though. Many of the highest ranking sites on the Internet share their IP address with hundreds or thousands of other websites.

Can I get a "static IP address"?

We're sometimes asked if we offer "static IP addresses", or if a "dedicated IP address" and a "static IP address" are the same thing. They're different. We offer dedicated IP addresses, but we don't offer static IP addresses.

A "dedicated" IP address means you're the only customer using it. But the actual IP address involved can occasionally change without notice as we grow our network, defend against "denial of service" attacks on certain IP addresses, and make other changes. If that happens, we make sure your DNS entries point to the new IP address with an overlap period and no downtime, so people using the hostname will never notice the difference. This is why you should never use the IP address directly: you might end up pointing things at an IP address that stops working.

A "static" IP address would be an IP address that never changes in the future, even if you keep your hosting with us for years or decades. We don't have any way to guarantee that, so we don't offer it as a service. Dedicated IP addresses are much less likely to change than shared IP addresses (because many of the situations that would cause a shared address to change won’t apply), but changes are still possible.

Because your site’s IP address is not guaranteed to remain the same forever, you should never enter that IP address into any other system. If you do so, it will stop working when the IP address changes.

To avoid this problem, use a CNAME record instead (see below).

What is my site's IP address?

While you can easily answer this question using widely available Internet tools, you shouldn't need to know what the IP address is. If you're planning on using the raw IP address in some way, you're almost certainly doing something we don't support that will stop working in the future (because it's not a static IP address, even if it's dedicated). Simply put, whatever you use the address for will point to the wrong server when the IP address changes.

In many cases, you may be able to use a DNS “CNAME record” instead of an “A record” to avoid having to enter the raw IP address of your site in another company’s nameservers. Our “Web Hosting DNS Settings for Third-Party Nameservers” page has information about that.

If that page doesn’t help, please contact us and let us know in detail what you're trying to do. We'll help you do it in a way that won't cause problems.

Do you provide reverse DNS entries for dedicated IP addresses?

Yes. If your site is on a dedicated IP address with us, the reverse DNS entry for that IP address will automatically be set to match your domain name instead of a generic hostname.

Can I use a dedicated IP address in a URL to access my website?

No. A dedicated IP address won't allow you to use the address in a URL like "http://192.0.2.17/". You always need to use the correct domain name to connect to our servers, whether or not you have a dedicated IP address. The server needs to know the domain name to ensure it's showing the right files and using the right SSL certificate.

If you’re trying to point other domain names at an IP address that serves a site you already have with us, the right way to do it is to instead have us set up the other domain names as “aliases”. That way we’ll provide DNS service for them that always points at the correct IP address, even if it changes.

How do I view a site I'm transferring if I can't access it using the IP address?

Does this affect outgoing connections from scripts on my site?

Even if you have a dedicated IP address for your site, outbound TCP or UDP connections made by your scripts will probably not automatically use it as the source address. To make that happen, you would need to have a programmer change your script to “bind” outgoing connections to that source address.